Justice Lords

Television appearances

The Justice Lords are an alternate Justice League from a parallel Earth whose roster resembles the original DC animated universe Justice League—an alternate Batman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Superman, and Wonder Woman—with the exception of The Flash, because the Flash from their universe is dead.

Their world diverges from that of the Justice League; their Lex Luthor is elected President of the United States and kills the alternate Flash, and establishes policies resulting in the country's "being on the brink of a war that could destroy the whole planet" according to Superman. The alternate Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman try to stop the war, storming the White House and confronting Luthor (who threatens nuclear war). When he tells the alternate Superman that no matter how many times Superman sends him to prison, Luthor would find a way back to power, Superman kills Luthor with heat vision and decides that he likes this new form of "justice". The other Lords also lose faith in humanity.

The Justice Lords seize the world's governments, ruling with an iron fist. Using their satellite base for surveillance, they suppress free speech, outlaw elections, impose curfews and eliminate crime by lobotomizing criminals and supervillains. Lord Superman has also imposed severe restrictions on his girlfriend Lois Lane's way of life, forbidding her from making phone calls, having unauthorized guests, or leaving her home. Although they justify their behavior as "temporary" and for the good of the people, it is tyranny to the Justice League.

"A Better World"

The Justice Lords discover their counterparts when Lord Batman finds the League during an experiment which allowed him to view the alternate universe, as well as be transported there. Bored with their world, the Lords decide to "assist" their counterparts by ridding the League's world of crime just as they did theirs, and trick the League into going to the alternate Earth. When the League arrives, they are imprisoned and rendered unconscious. They are later transferred to cells designed to neutralize their powers (except Hawkgirl, who is injured trying to escape), and Lord Batman stays behind to keep watch over them.

When the rest of the Lords arrive on mainstream Earth (masquerading as its true heroes) they meet Doomsday, a monstrous fighter who challenges Earth's mightiest combatants and goes on a rampage. The Lords (especially Lord Superman, who predicts that the Lords will win over the earthlings with their "justice") are happy to fight him. After a hard fight, Lord Superman lobotomizes Doomsday with his heat vision (to the surprise of reporter Lois Lane). Luthor, who knows the real Superman's character, deduces that the Lords are not the League.

The League escapes from the holding facility when the Flash accelerates his heartbeat to make Lord Batman think that he has flatlined. Lord Batman opens the Flash's door, is locked in the cell by the Flash and the League escapes. Most go to Arkham Asylum to retrieve Hawkgirl, although Batman goes to the Batcave to get the dimensional transporter. There Batman and Lord Batman fight, and Batman convinces Lord Batman that the Lords' methods are wrong, after sarcastically saying that if "Mom and Dad" were alive, they'd be "so proud" of what Lord Batman has done to his world (to the point of having a man arrested for complaining about the food quality and incorrect calculation of cost at a restaurant). Batman saves the League from the alternate Earth's security forces and sends them back to their reality.

On mainstream Earth Superman approaches Lex Luthor for help against the Lords. The League distracts the Lords long enough for Luthor to use a power disruptor to strip them of their powers. The Lords are arrested, and Luthor expresses his intention to enter politics.

Long-term effects

The Lords' proposed alterations of mainstream Earth have repercussions in the first two seasons of Justice League Unlimited. The events of "A Better World" aid Amanda Waller's crusade against the destructive capabilities of the metahuman population if the government left it unchecked. When Waller is confronted by Batman, she reveals simulations to see what would happen if the League went rogue; each time, the government was defeated. Project Cadmus, established to counter Superman if he went rogue (as shown in the Superman: The Animated Series two-part episode "Legacy"), expanded its threat list to the entire Justice League. Mistrust increased within the League; Batman and the Question fear that what happened to the Lords' Earth would happen to theirs when Luthor nearly wins the presidency, and the Question tries to kill Luthor.

The League's apparent degeneration (including Superman’s fight with Captain Marvel and his attempt to lobotomize Doomsday) cast it in an increasingly bad light. However, it recruits the populist, astute Green Arrow as its political conscience; he puts the role of Cadmus in perspective for the League, preventing it from succumbing to the temptation that created the Lords.

Luthor hacks the Justice League Watchtower to attack Cadmus headquarters, with extensive collateral damage. As the public turns against it, the League decommissions the Watchtower and surrenders as a good-faith gesture (except Batman, who wants to clear the League's name himself). Cadmus, however, decides to retaliate against this act of aggression by the League. They declare war by sending Galatea (a clone of Supergirl) and an army of genetically engineered metahumans to attack the Watchtower and kill the rest of the League on board. When Batman finally convinces Waller that Luthor is responsible for the attack, they confront him in his Lexcorp offices. The rest of the League arrives to save them, learning that Superman's old enemy Brainiac (last seen in a battle with Darkseid) had been hiding in Luthor's body for many years.

"Divided We Fall"

Brainiac, resident in Luthor, creates duplicate androids of the Lords in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Divided We Fall". He adds an android duplicate of the Flash, in a costume nearly identical to that of comic-book villain Zoom, to distract the League from his (and Luthor's) goal of universal domination. The androids fight the League, playing on its worst fears: Superman becoming a Justice Lord, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl's failed relationship and her pariah status on Earth and Thanagar. Only Flash seemed unaffected by his replica's taunts due to his overly optimistic nature, and the androids were quickly destroyed, though the group of androids was merely a delaying tactic on the part of the Brainiac/Luthor entity.

The growing fear that the League might become the Lords reaches a climax in this episode, when the Flash exceeds his maximum speed (vanishing into the Speed Force) to destroy the link between Brainiac and Luthor. With Flash supposedly dead, and Luthor at his mercy, Superman is put in the same position as his Justice Lord counterpart, but resists the temptation and refuses to kill Luthor. J'onn then senses Flash's presence, and the League successfully pulls him back from the Speed Force before he can vanish completely, saving his life and avoiding the path of the Justice Lords.

Realizing that they are estranged from those they are trying to protect and still fearful of the future, Superman announces the dissolution of the Justice League, but Green Arrow challenges him, saying that the Justice League was bigger than any individual and would continue without the original seven, and Superman changes his mind. The League establishes an embassy on Earth as a secondary Watchtower, and maintains a closer relationship with law enforcement.

Comic books

In Batman Beyond, the effects of Lex Luthor’s power disruptor are temporary. When the Lords’ powers are restored, Lords Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl refuse to choose sides in the conflict between Lord Superman and Lord Batman (as Lord Batman had eventually managed to convince the three of them that the Justice Lords' methods are wrong) and leave Earth in disgust. Lord Superman marries Lady Wonder Woman during their war against Lord Batman and his benevolent followers. When the League returns to the Lords’ world to help Lord Batman, the League's Wonder Woman and Lord Batman fall in love; she remains in the Lords’ world and marries him. The League’s Batman is heartbroken; he and Wonder Woman were attracted to each other, but he thought a romantic relationship in the team would cause trouble.

Decades later, Lord Batman dies fighting the other Lords; the world remains under their tyranny, with wars between Lord Superman and Lord Batman's followers. Although the League's Wonder Woman returns to mainstream Earth, Superman and Batman’s successor Terry McGinnis are suspicious; their Wonder Woman and her Lady counterpart are identical, and they think this Wonder Woman may be Lord Superman’s wife working as a spy. McGinnis travels to the Lords' world, and learns about Lord Batman's death. The comics introduce parallel-universe versions of Terry McGinnis and Dick Grayson. In this world, Lord McGinnis never meets Bruce Wayne (and never becomes Batman); Lord Grayson is an officer on the Justice Lords' task force, despite being Lord Batman's partner decades before. Lord Superman arrives on the League's world with his followers—including the Justice-Lord versions of Warhawk, Aquagirl (Mareena), Micron, Captain Marvel, the Flash (Danica Williams), and Curare—telling the Justice League that Wonder Woman is his wife.

Years after Wonder Woman's marriage to Lord Batman, her Lady counterpart lures her husband out of hiding and murders him; Wonder Woman kills Lady Wonder Woman in retaliation for her husband's death and marries Lord Superman, conceiving their son Zod so their followers will declare a truce. However, their marriage is a sham; Zod is conceived from the genetic engineering of his parents' DNA with technology from Krypton, Themyscira and Project Cadmus. After Lord Superman discovers that Terry McGinnis has traveled to his universe, he returns to his world to confront him and his counterpart. McGinnis discovers a Batsuit, more advanced than his own, made by Lord Batman to counter Lord Superman's powers. McGinnis dons the Batsuit to battle Lord Superman, with his counterpart as a witness. The first fight ends with Terry faking his death (with the Batsuit) when Lord Superman uses heat vision. Terry later discovers that the suit is powered by synthetic kryptonite, with which Lord Batman planned to defeat Lord Superman.

When Lord Superman returns to the League's world, he fights Superman, Bruce Wayne and Wonder Woman in the Batcave and Zod arrives to help his mother. Terry defeats Lord Superman when the fight spreads to Gotham's downtown area, while the rest of the League defeat the rest of the Justice Lords. Superman sends Lord Superman to the Phantom Zone, where he meets Superman's old enemy Jax-Ur and begins to make plans with him at Jax-Ur's suggestion. Seeing the Lords' world finally at peace, Wonder Woman returns to the Justice League and Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne plans to build another synthetic kryptonite Batsuit, in case Lord Superman escapes. As McGinnis and Dick Grayson upgrade McGinnis' Batsuit based on Lord Batman's design, their counterparts repair Lord Batman's Batsuit (which McGinnis returned); Grayson intends to groom McGinnis' counterpart as the new Batman for the Justice Lords' world.

In the Multiversity series, Grant Morrison listed the Justice Lords as resident on Earth-50 of the New 52's DC Multiverse, placing it within DC comics continuity as well as that of the DC Animated Universe To date, this has not been elaborated into a story arc.

Members

Toys

The Justice Lords were released in the Justice League Unlimited toyline in three 3-pack collector sets. The first set featured Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. A reviewer wrote that although they do not stand up on their own, they "represent one of the most popular episodes of the entire Justice League series." The next pack contained Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern and the Flash. The final set contained Hawkgirl and the Brainiac versions of Superman and Batman. In 2012 Treehouse Kids released its Heroics line of collectable figurines, which includes Justice Lords Superman as a chase figure.

Inspiration and parallels

According to the DVD commentary on the second part of "A Better World", although the Justice Lords began as a Crime Syndicate of America story the writers decided that a story about a rogue Justice League had more story potential as the Crime Syndicate was simply evil. The episode is similar to a Dan Jurgens Justice League America story, "Destiny's Hand". In that story, the Atom dreams about the original Justice League becoming oppressive rulers of the world. Doctor Destiny tries to make this "dream universe" absorb the mainstream reality, and the modern Justice League fights the "evil" old Justice League.

Injustice: Gods Among Us also shared much similarity to the Justice Lords, in that a parallel version of the Justice League, save for Batman, became oppressive rulers of the world after Superman was tricked by the Joker into killing Lois Lane, their unborn child, and destroying Metropolis with a nuclear bomb. The alternative Batman ended up bringing in the mainstream version of the Justice League to combat Superman and his forces. Notable differences from the Justice Lords include Flash being alive and fighting on Superman's side (before he realises how far the 'heroes' have fallen and defects) and Green Lantern Hal Jordan now a member of the Sinestro Corps as he fights for Superman.

The premise of a Justice League-type super-team establishing a totalitarian state for what they see as the good of humanity was explored in Marvel Comics' original Squadron Supreme miniseries, its recent reworking of that story, in Wildstorm's The Authority and the "Titans Tomorrow" storyline of the Teen Titans comic book. The idea of metahumans taking control of humans, and of Superman leading them to make a better world, is also developed in the Elseworlds mini-series Kingdom Come. According to Bruce Timm's DVD commentary, Batman was to form Outsiders as a counter-superteam of the Lords but the idea was discarded. In the Avengers Annual #2, the Avengers are sent to an alternate world by an early version of Kang; the original Avengers take over the world and imprison other super-beings, allegedly for their own good. The idea of altering criminals to prevent them from returning to crime was also part of the DC Comics mini-series Identity Crisis (albeit using magic and primarily intended to protect the heroes' secret identities) and in Marvel Comics' original Squadron Supreme miniseries.